Introduction

In recent years, many research studies in science education have focused on the significance of students developing a subject-specific language to improve and strengthen their learning (e.g., Hernandez Garcia & Schleppegrell, 2020). The subject language and the disciplinary literacy perspectives in science education have increasingly come into focus, both in terms of teaching strategies and in terms of understanding students’ learning processes. One classical example is a specific research focus on the semantic patterns (Lemke,  2001) that teachers and students assume when constructing scientific sentences or the lexicogrammatical structure (e.g., Fang, 2006) that students use when engage in negotiations about the meaning of specific scientific content or concepts. Another example is studies that explore students' learning in science based on their use of pictures, graphs, diagrams or other semiotic and multimodal representations (e.g., Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006), which also constitute important aspects of disciplinary literacy perspectives in science. Furthermore, several studies (e.g., Gee, 2015) have emphasized the need to understand science education from the perspective that it constitutes a specific discourse in which specialized ways of talking, thinking, and acting often establish an apparent contrast to everyday language use and ways to communicate outside of school.

All these aspects are interrelated and interwoven in teaching contexts, which contribute to the fact that many students can experience science as difficult or abstract, or an area that is not for them (e.g., Banks & Banks, 2019). Other studies have shown that this may be especially true for multilingual students or second-language learners who are faced with the dual task of learning a new language at the same time as they are expected to develop an understanding of concepts and theories in science with the help of this language (e.g., Jakobsson & Kouns, 2023; Probyn, 2019). This brings a further dimension of complexity into multilingual science classrooms and places high demands on the teacher’s language awareness in teaching. Within this area, several studies have focused on teaching situations in science where multilingual students are allowed to use all their language resources (translanguaging) to develop a conceptual understanding of the subject content (e.g. Karlsson et al, 2019; Jakobsson et al, 2022). These studies clearly indicate that students benefit from this opportunity and that they demonstrate a developed understanding of the subject content. However, an important issue in this context is what additional science classroom activities may facilitate and strengthen multilingual students’ subject language development, and thus their conceptual understanding. 

Science education as a hybrid of languages

In a classroom perspective, meaning in language is situated, but also strongly related to the actual discourse in which the participants use their language within. Yore and Treagust, (2006) describe this as a kind of a “three-language problem”, as students move between home, school, and scientific discourses and are expected to understand that words and expressions have different meanings or connotations in different contexts. This does not imply that words and their meanings are totally separable or mutually exclusive; instead, they are related and interwoven and operate at different levels of students’ lives. Thus, language usage in science and science education becomes specific choices of words, grammar, idioms, and metaphors and ways of excluding or including common elements of everyday life.

In these contexts, one problem is that language usage in education usually takes place on an implicit level, which may lead to confusion among students (Kambrelis & Wehunt, 2012). In such learning environments, teachers often adopt a hybrid language without clarifying the context in which words and expressions belong. Some studies. (e.g. Jakobsson & Kouns, 2023) assert that using an unconsidered hybridity in science classrooms may implicate increased complexity, obvious risks for misunderstandings, and insufficient learning outcomes. Therefore, Tan et al (2012) argue that important ways of empowering science instruction include making hybrid spaces explicit for students by comparing and merging their everyday worlds and colloquial language with the language of science. A study of Brown and Spang (2008) showed that one way of concretizing these theoretical concepts to a practical educational strategy is to use the term double talk in order make the language use explicit to students. It will also be a way to clarify to the students when and why it is appropriate and functional to use a scientific language and word choice and when more everyday words are more suitable. 

Multilingual students in science education

The appropriation of a scientific language is a long and ongoing process for all students but entails an increased complexity for students who have the language of instruction as their second language. It implies offering all students rich opportunities to gradually develop a highly specialized subject-specific language in science simultaneously as they develop their language register in different languages. (e.g. Schleppegrell, 2016; Karlsson et al, 2020). However, Probyn (2019) asserts that that science teachers often display a lack of experience and professional knowledge about how science instruction could be organized to support multilingual students’ needs when it comes to developing their language and conceptual knowledge. An obvious risk is that teachers who work in schools with linguistically diverse student populations tend to lower their expectations regarding the students’ skills related to the content of instruction (Karlsson, et al 2020). This can lead to a unilateral alignment to students’ reading and writing skills, rather than focusing on their knowledge development in science. In these contexts, Hajer and Meestringa (2014) assert that the subject content and the subject-specific language risk becoming too simplified, which further disadvantages this student group. Instead, a language-oriented science education is primarily about making the use of scientific language explicit for the students. 

Traditionally, multilingual students have frequently been described from a deficit perspective or as problems to be addressed, often based on the argument of a presumed lack of skills in the language of instruction (e.g., Cummins, 2014). This is especially true for minoritized multilingual students in contexts dominated by monolingual educational policies (e.g., Probyn, 2019). However, translanguaging as a pedagogical practice has increasingly contributed to the legitimization of minoritized multilingual students’ use of all their language resources as meaning-making tools in the classrooms, which also reinforce their engagement and identity formation as learners (e.g., García & Wei, 2014). These situations may be defined as learning situations in which students are allowed and consciously encouraged to use all their language resources to develop an understanding of the subject content and the language used in teaching (Karlsson et al, 2019; 2020). The pedagogical purpose of such a strategy is that multilingual students do not become limited in their acquisition of knowledge exclusively through the language of instruction (monolingualism) but are able to benefit from their entire language repertoire to create meaning.

Three papers

Trends, traditions and visions for Scientific Literacy

The first presentation focuses mainly on the theoretical frameworks that support and develop the understanding of language use in science teaching and learning. This includes concepts such as multimodality, multilingualism, translanguaging, disciplinary literacy, scientific literacy and overarching descriptions such as Languages ​​and Literacies in Science Education. The latter, "Language and Literacies in Science Education" constitutes one of the nine Special Interest Groups (SIG 6) in ESERA and consists of a relatively large number of researchers worldwide. This interest group holds conferences twice a year and during the last one an invited panel discussed trends, traditions and visions regarding the concept of Scientific Literacy. Afterwards, an article was published summarizing the discussion (see Kersting et al 2024). In conclusion, the panel stated that science education in the future will have to adapt to changing societal demands (e.g. in multilingual contexts) and technological innovations (e.g. with the rise of large language models AI), the role of language – as both a resource for instruction and an object of study – is likely to take on even greater significance in the future.

Potentials and limitations of multilingual practices

The second presentation describe preliminary results from a research project on potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in science and mathematics education, funded by the Swedish Research Council. The project mainly aims to explore and problematize how multilingual approaches and activities may promote science teaching and learning. It has been conducted by an interdisciplinary research team that integrates theories from educational research in didactics, sociology and linguistics and translanguaging. The project comprised an initial exploration of existing pedagogical practices, mainly through workshops with teachers, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers. The exploring phase was followed by two years of pedagogical interventions, in which teachers and researchers together designed, carried out and analyzed classroom interventions. The initial analyses indicate that deliberate and carefully designed methods and strategies for utilizing the semiotic and multilingual resources available in multilingual science classrooms often enhance students’ engagement and foster their opportunities to broaden and deepen subject-specific knowledge. At the same time, the analyses highlight the complexity of this work and the necessity of adapting multilingual methods and strategies to the contextual conditions in which they are applied. 

Migrant Families’ Translanguaging in Science Museums offering Multilingual Materials

 The third presentation describes preliminary results from a Dutch research project on migrant family’s use of translanguaging when visiting Science Museums. Science museums offer rich learning contexts for families. However, migrant families often experience language challenges that may hinder their museum participation and learning. Offering these families multilingual exhibitions may help tackle these challenges. Initial analyses show that the availability of multilingual materials for family activities (in Dutch, Turkish, and English) facilitated translanguaging processes that supported families’ conversations around the museum exhibitions. The question is what types of translanguaging processes and what content do the families engage in while using the different languages ​​in the museum.

To be able to answer that question we invited sixteen families with Turkish-speaking backgrounds (both newcomers and 2nd-generation families) to participate in the family activities. The results of the initial analyses indicate four different types of translanguaging processes a) flexibly choosing; b) translating and interpreting; c) using multimodal resources and d) combining languages and registers. 

References

Karlsson, A., Nygård Larsson, P., & Jakobsson, A. (2019). Multilingual students’ use of translanguaging in science classrooms. International Journal of Science .Education, 41(15), 2049-2069.

Karlsson, A., Nygård Larsson, P., & Jakobsson, A. (2020). The continuity of learning in a translanguaging science classroom. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 15, 1-25.

Jakobsson, A., Nygård Larsson, P., & Bergman, L, (2022). Ämneslitteraciteter i skola och högre utbildning. [Subject literacies in school and higher education]. In A. Jakobsson, P. Nygård Larsson and Lotta Bergman (Eds). Ämneslitteracitet och inkluderande undervisning. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 1, p. 15-30.

Jakobsson, A., & Kouns, M. (2023). Subject-language perspectives on multilingual students learning in science. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 11(2), 197-214.

Brown, B. A., & Spang, E. (2008). Double talk: Synthesizing everyday and science language in the classroom. Science Education, 92(4), 708–732.

Cummins, J. (2014). Beyond language: Academic communication and student success. Linguistics and Education. 26, 145–154.

Fang, Z. (2006). The language demands of science reading in middle school. International Journal of Science Education, 28(5), 491–520. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690500339092

García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gee, J. (2015). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. Fifth edition. Routledge.

Hajer, M. & Meestringa, T. (2014). Språkutvecklande undervisning – en handbok [Language Development Education – A Handbook]. Uppsala: Hallgren & Fallgren.

Hernandez Garcia, M., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2021). Culturally sustaining disciplinary literacy for bi/multilingual learners: Creating a translanguaging social studies classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(4), 449–454. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1129

Kambrelis, G., & Wehunt, M. (2012). Hybrid discourse practice and science learning. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 7(3), 505–534.

Kersting, M., Danielsson, K., Fleury Mortimer, E., Olander, C., Siry, C., & Tang, K. S. (2024). From founding voices to future visions: languages ​​and literacies in science education. International Journal of Science Education, 1-18.

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images. The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.

Lemke, J. L. (2001). Articulating communities: Sociocultural perspectives on science education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(3), 296–316. 

Probyn, M. (2019). Pedagogical translanguaging and the construction of science knowledge in a multilingual South African classroom: challenging monoglossic/post-colonial orthodoxies. Classroom Discourse, 10(3–4), 216–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2019.1628792

Schleppegrell, M. J. (2016). Content-based language teaching with functional grammar in the elementary school. Language Teaching, 49(1), 116–128. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444814000093

Tan, E., Calabrese Barton, A., Turner, E., & Gutiérrez, M. V. (2012). Empowering science and mathematics education in urban schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Books. 

Yore, L. D., & Treagust, D. F. (2006). Current realities and future possibilities: Language and science - empowering research and informing instruction. International Journal of Science Education, 28(2–3), 291–314.

This paper is a part of the project Spaces for multilingualism (Swedish Research Council, 2021-04155). The aim of the project is to generate knowledge about the pedagogical potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in mathematics and science education. We specifically aim to explore and problematise how multilingual approaches and activities may promote mathematics and science teaching and learning in school years 4–9. The qualitative project is conducted by an interdisciplinary research team that integrates theories from educational research in didactics, sociology and linguistics, including translanguaging theories. The project’s four-year period comprises initial exploration of existing pedagogical practices, in four culturally and linguistically diverse schools. The explorative phase is followed by a two-year period of pedagogical interventions.The presentation will focus on the exploratory phase of the study and the preliminary findings from interviews with students and teachers, workshops where teachers and researchers worked together, and classroom observations, and focus on teachers’ and students’ use of meaning-making resources in science education, and how students’ prior experiences and communicative repertoires are acknowledged as resources in multilingual classroom activities.

The purpose of the interdisciplinary project is to generate knowledge about the pedagogical potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in mathematics and science education. We specifically aim to explore and problematise how multilingual approaches and activities may promote mathematics and science teaching and learning in school years 4–9. The qualitative project is conducted by an interdisciplinary research team that integrates theories from educational research in didactics, sociology and linguistics, including translanguaging theories. The project’s four-year period comprises initial exploration of existing pedagogical practices, mainly through workshops with teachers, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers, in four culturally and linguistically diverse schools. This explorative phase is followed by a two-year period of pedagogical interventions, in which teachers and researchers together design, carry out and analyse classroom interventions. The interventions involve exploring the pedagogical potentials and limitations for promoting multilingual resources for teaching and learning. Further, students’ identities as engaged learners of mathematics and science are explored. Our ambition is for the project to contribute with new and multifaceted knowledge on the complexity of teaching and learning in multilingual mathematics and science classrooms in mainstream compulsory schools in which the students have a variety of language backgrounds.

In this study, we have explored the ways in which small-group work in science can contribute to strengthen multilingual students’ subject language and conceptual development when working with language-oriented classroom activities in primary classrooms. The aim is to determine whether it is possible to identify factors in interactions in small-group work that strengthen and facilitate the students’ language development. We have focused on how students orally formulate themselves when describing observations, hypotheses, and explanations of certain scientific experiments on the properties of air. An important starting point has been that students’ successive development of a subject-specific language is crucial for their conceptual development and understanding. The analyses of the dialogues have made it possible to study how individual students gradually develop their way of expressing themselves by taking over others’ expressions and word choices and making their own. The analysis also shows that these dialogical situations are crucial for all students to develop their language use in science, primarily through probing a more precise way of expressing themselves and putting their scientific ideas and thoughts into words. An important conclusion is that students should be offered opportunities and space to develop their subject language register in science and that this is important for all students, but crucial for those for whom the language of instruction is a second language

The purpose of this study is to explore whether, and if so how, a design activity could encourage students to express and develop knowledge on emerging technology in relation to issues about sustainability. Several researchers have asserted that, in today's technologically dependent society, it is important to be able to control technology and make informed decisions connected to technology. Design activities could make a significant contribution to technology education while students are developing their knowledge about technology. Thus, the present study aims to analyze students' verbal interactions as they work in a design project, which includes designing a model of a house, regarding their ability to develop technological literacy with the support of a physical model. The study is based on several small-group interactions that were recorded, transcribed, analyzed, and discussed. This research project was conducted as an observation of technology education in a Swedish compulsory school. The students (aged 13-14) negotiated and shared knowledge about technology as they interacted with their fellow students. The results indicate that, in a relatively large number of situations, the students expressed knowledge about emerging technology and adopted a sustainability perspective while working in a design activity, and thereby, successively developed technological literacy. This meant that the students were able to integrate knowledge on emerging technology like graphene, nanotechnology, and algae batteries in their models. Furthermore, the results indicate that, during technical development work, students were able to develop reasoning, communication, and collaboration skills.

Litteracitet har traditionellt beskrivits utifrån människors läs- och skrivförmågor eller förmågan att hantera siffror och enkla problemlösningssituationer i vardagen. I den här antologin tar författarna i stället avstamp i ett vidgat perspektiv på begreppet för att undersöka hur det gestaltar sig inom olika ämnesområden.

Genom exempel från olika klassrum och ämnen belyser författarna ämneslitteracitet och ger uppslag till hur lärare kan arbeta för att utveckla och förstärka elevers ämnesspråkliga kunskaper och förmågor. Utgångspunkten är att ämneslitteracitet och ämnes­kunskaper utvecklas i nära samspel, vilket återspeglas i ett specifikt agerande som tar sig olika uttryck i olika ämnen. Här diskuteras även på vilka sätt som fokus på ämneslitteracitet och ett språk- och kunskapsutvecklande arbetssätt kan medverka till en inkluderande undervisning.

Boken vänder sig främst till lärarstudenter och lärare i grundskola, gymnasieskola och vuxenutbildning.

In recent years, the increased globalization has led to Swedish science classrooms, just as in the rest of Europe, involving a variety of languages and cultures, which places particular demands on science education. The use of the functionally scientific language is characterized by complexity, which often hinders students’ learning in science. For students whose first language is different than the language of instruction, this can be a great challenge. In this presentation, we relate to two studies – (1) a web-based vocabulary test, and (2) an ethnographic study of a translanguaging science classroom – to illustrate how multilingual students’ use of translanguaging can constitute a resource for science learning. The studies reveal that multilingual students move in loops between discursive and national languages in their conversations about the scientific content. The students commonly use their first language (Arabic) when moving toward an everyday discourse and use their second language (Swedish) when approaching the scientific discourse. Moreover, analyses show how the students often use both Swedish and Arabic to clarify semantic relationships between scientific words and concepts in translanguaging science classrooms (TSC). The students commonly express the subject-specific words in Swedish, while the descriptive, clarifying, interconnecting words and phrases describing the semantic relationships often are expressed in Arabic. In this way, both Arabic and Swedish become linguistic and cognitive tools when students learn science. With increased awareness of the complex subject-specific language and multilingual students’ use of their entire linguistic repertoires in a TSC, increased conditions for the development of significant pedagogical tool can be created that can help science educators frame learning in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms and give students greater opportunities to participate in the science instruction contexts, to influence their learning situation and to put students in a position as co-constructors of their own learning.